


The Dead Returning Lightly Dance

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-07
Updated: 2007-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ronon was young, he heard stories from his grandparents of the way the great festivals used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dead Returning Lightly Dance

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Cate for betaing.

When Ronon was young, he heard stories from his grandparents of the way the great festivals used to be. Not the way they were now, but the way they used to be when most peoples lived in small towns and everyone kept to the Old Rule. Days of fasting and nights of drinking, when all of Sateda would come together to celebrate, all of it leading up to that one night in the capital, the last night, when one was chosen. One was chosen, and one was blindfolded; an address was entered at random, and that one person was sent through with prayers and chants, with bells tied to their hands and feet, with garlands around their waist. They were sent through, and the circle was closed; if they returned, if the circle flared blue moments later, and the offered one returned, then the priests would declare the coming year to be twelve-times blessed, that this was an omen of a year of good harvests and many strong children.

Most times, of course, Ronon was told, the circle stayed empty, and the offered one never returned. The combinations of addresses were nearly infinite; the places where a person could live were not. Most of them must have suffocated in the cold of space, or drowned, or froze, died quickly or slowly, and all of them away from home.

Centuries before Ronon was born, the ritual was outlawed as barbaric; cruel and unusual punishment for those who had committed no worthy sin, who did not deserve to suffer so much for so little.

Ronon recounts the bare bones of this for the anthropologist who wields a tape recorder under his nose like she can swallow up his words. She wants to know more, and pushes him for what he thinks of the custom, its history, what contemporary Satedan opinion is on the topic? Ronon shrugs like he always does when the anthropologists come digging; there's no such thing as Sateda in the now, and he doesn't think these always-curious scientists would really like to hear what he thinks—that the ritual wasn't fair, but it was true, it was real, and it was as hopeful a thing as you could look for in this galaxy, where each step through the gate could bring you closer to death, and very few journeys brought you home.   


* * *

  
Over lunch, Teyla tells him the anthropologist is also fascinated by the Athosian New Year. "Dr Rasmussen is interested in comparing Athosian and Satedan festivals," she says, spooning up the last of her yoghurt before licking her spoon clean. "Especially since my people will shortly be celebrating our year festival."

"Why?" Ronon says. "Nothing alike."

"I find it best not to ask questions of Dr Rasmussen or her team when they come looking for me," Teyla says ruefully. "I like to think that I am a patient woman, but I have no desire to grow old while they explain their fascination with house alignments, or knitting patterns for Athosian socks."

"They talked at you about why you knitted socks?"

"I believe so," Teyla says, "I was not truly listening."

"Smart." Ronon steals the half of a muffin which still remains on her plate.

"You will come though, won't you?" Teyla says, as soon as his mouth is full of food. He thinks she does that on purpose.

"Mmpfh?"

"To the festival, on the mainland. Nearly everyone from the city is going—I have even persuaded Rodney—and it would be a shame if you were not there with us."

Ronon shoots a look at her, and swallows. "How'd you get McKay to agree?"

"I promised him that coffee would be served at the midnight feast."

"And how'd the Athosians get their hands on coffee?"

"I persuaded the Colonel to steal the cache which Rodney thinks he has safely hidden in his office, and to take it to the mainland," Teyla says, matter-of-factly. Her voice is prim, but her eyes are bright with laughter.

Ronon looks across the mess at McKay, who is holding forth at another table with Sheppard and Zelenka. He's bright red and his hands are making patterns in the air, which means he's either very excited about some new discovery, or the kitchen's served up green bean surprise again. Ronon looks back at Teyla, and grins.

* * *

McKay finds the scrap of paper one evening a few days later, when they're watching a movie together in Ronon's quarters.

"What's this?" McKay says, frowning. "The Satedan notation system is organised around base six? Huh, that's not unexpected, I noticed you counting in—but you do realise these equations are completely nonsensical, right? What were you thinking? Or, hah, not thinking, as the case may be."

Ronon shrugs, not looking up from the explosions and the car crashes on screen.

McKay soon finds what he's looking for—the remote control, buried underneath Ronon's great-coat—and forgets all about the paper, dropping back down onto the bed and picking back up his bowl of popcorn. Ronon sits next to him and wonders if the scribbles on that piece of paper were nonsensical; if working out that the Satedan harvest festival was three weeks ago, that the new Satedan year would have started a month from now, was a waste of time. He hadn't missed the harvest festival, hadn't even known it should be happening.

_Nonsensical_, he thinks, staring at the screen while Rodney expresses his approval of the girl with the large breasts who is running far too slowly to have any hope of escape. _Nonsense. No sense at all._

* * *

Teyla likes discussing the arrangements for the festival with him, for some reason. She's not doing most of the organising, of course, her work in the city and off-world keeping her busy, but late at night in their bed, she will roll over and tell him about Halling's mistake in ordering three times more _lacka_ fruit from Minth'aka than they could possibly use, or about the troupe of entertainers—jugglers and acrobats, puppeteers and fire-walkers—which has been hired to perform.

"The celebrations are not usually this elaborate," she tells him while he plays with her hair, winding the copper-rich strands around his fingers, "but all of us felt that our first full year on a new world should be marked in a special way."

"Mmm," Ronon says, half-asleep and agreeing simply because he can see no cause for disagreement here.

"Halling did still argue that we keep to the solar calendar of Athos," she continues, her mouth twisted wry and rueful. "But then I would be surprised if there were any matter on which he and I agreed. I made it clear I felt it would be ridiculous to celebrate solstice so long after it had passed here." Her expression softens a little, the lines in her forehead smoothing out, and she shakes her head. "It is better to reach for the new, I think, when there is nothing to be gained in clinging to the old."

"Mmm," Ronon says, but he's more than half-awake now, even as Teyla falls asleep next to him, her words dying away as her breathing evens out. Her head pillowed on his shoulder, her arms wound around him, and he strokes her hair, over and over, and wonders what it would be like if he still had his people with him; if he still had someone to ask, someone to help him recreate the old ways, to make Sateda anew.

* * *

In the end, Ronon decides to go to the festival, and so does most of the city. The jumpers work from early morning, ferrying people to the mainland—for the weekend, it seems, Atlantis will work with only a skeleton staff, peopled by those with a greater sense of self-sacrifice than their peers, or those who just can't pass up the opportunity of two day's peace in the labs.

McKay would normally fall into the latter category, and despite his promises to Teyla before she left for the mainland the previous evening, Ronon and Sheppard still have to drag him from the labs before the last jumper leaves. "But," he says as Sheppard yanks him along by his tac vest, "I'm almost, I'm _just_—"

"Rodney," Sheppard says, "No one's going to win the Nobel without you. You can afford to relax for a couple of days, so quit your bitching."

"Please," McKay says as they reach the control room, "If anyone here is a pissy, whiny little bitch, Colonel, then I think the honour of the title must go to you."

"Rodney, Rodney," Sheppard says, a look on his face so sorrowful Ronon knows it has to be fake. "What has Elizabeth told us about gender-derogatory language in the workplace? Not cool, buddy," before he reaches over to cuff McKay upside the head.

"Son of a b... _something_!" McKay yelps.

Ronon glances over at Weir, who is discussing rosters with Campbell at a nearby workstation, but who's also become distracted by the antics of her chief military and science officers. She looks at them, then at Ronon, before rolling her eyes in a display of fond exasperation. Ronon can sympathise.

* * *

McKay perks up once they reach the mainland. Sheppard makes sure his tablet computer is left behind in the jumper, but there's not much difficulty in coaxing McKay towards the celebrations—the party's already in full swing, Athosians and Atlanteans mingling with guests from half a dozen worlds, all of them old or new trading partners of the Athosians. There's the promise of pleasure music and laughter, a puppet show for the very smallest children, a juggler who tries to drawn Sheppard into his routine as they walk past. Ronon can smell food cooking, roasting meat and fresh-baked bread, the scent of spices. All of the settlement is lit up with dozens, hundreds, of tiny lights, strings of them reaching from home to home, spiralling over the tops of the communal tents, and they light up the evening sky like newborn stars.

The centrepiece of it all, they find, as they walk towards where the crowd is densest, is a great wooden circle, a carved replica of the stargate. It's as true in detail as it is in size, made of a dark and polished wood; the work of months, Ronon thinks, and so intricately carved that it almost seems like it could open up in a flare of blue, right there, and lead to other worlds.

"Huh, would you look at that," McKay says, but before they can get up close to look at it, there's a stir and a hush in the crowd. Craning his neck, Ronon can see Halling in Teyla step forward, hand in hand. Halling is all in red, and there are flowers in Teyla's hair. They begin to chant in a language Ronon doesn't know, but he thinks from its rhythms that it must be a form of High Athosian; their words rise and fall, quicker and quicker, until they have lifted all the Athosians up with them, and Ronon can hear that McKay is humming along wordlessly next to him. Higher and faster, louder and louder, and then the quick, abrupt finish—oil flung on the wood, and a taper brought—Teyla and Halling leaning forward together, touching the flame to the base of the ring, and up it goes with a roar, all of it, the flames hungry against the dry wood.

Sheppard rocks back on his feet, his head tilted up to watch the flames climb higher into the sky. "Cool," he breathes, "an actual—"

McKay holds up a finger in warning. "Ah! Don't even, Colonel."

Sheppard stretches his hands wide in mock supplication. "Oh come on, Rodney. It's like an extra-terrestrial tribute to Johnny Cash."

"Oh, for the love of..." McKay clicks his fingers at Ronon. "You, with me. We'll leave Colonel I've-Never-Met-A-Counter-Culture-Icon-I-Didn't-Love here, we're going to find food, and then _I'm_ going to get pleasantly toasted."

Ronon raises his eyebrows, feigning ignorance—hanging out with the Marines has taught him nothing if not the Earth idioms for fighting, fucking and drinking—and says "Toasted? Don't think you want to stand too close to that fire, McKay. It's hot."

McKay stares at him for a moment, as if unable to tell whether or not he's joking, before spitting "Aren't you the profound one?" Then he storms off in the direction of the nearby trestle tables that are laden down with food; Ronon sees him commandeer a large bowl of spice stew from one of the Athosian women.

Next to him, Sheppard shakes with ill-concealed laughter, slapping Ronon on the arm before he ambles off after McKay. "Good one, buddy," he says.

Ronon stays, and looks up at the burning gate, and grits his teeth.

* * *

With Teyla and Halling's ceremony over, the worst press of the crowd has drifted away, and those who still stay around the ring are spread out enough for dancers, the musicians, the drunks who need space for their toasts to one another, their salutes to the darkening sky. Near to Ronon, one small group of girls joins hands and turns in a circle, faster and faster, in time to the music of a flute. Their hair streams out behind them, and they kick their legs up as they sing.

Ronon blinks, and for a moment he doesn't see six young Athosians, but his own sisters and sister-cousins, as they were, just as they used to dance, with their heads and hands held high. The dancers whirl faster, and in his mind's eye, Ronon sees his sisters run for a gate they could never reach, sees them stumble and fall and die.

He needs a drink.

* * *

Lorne's slumped over the table that's been set aside to hold the alcohol; he's snoring softly, though Ronon doesn't know if it's because he's drunk, or if he's still exhausted from AR-2's latest mission—one which had seen them stumble back through the wormhole to Atlantis wearing nothing but yellowish mud and red feathers.

Ronon hadn't been surprised that McKay was quicker at aiming a camera than he was at aiming a gun.

He reaches over Lorne, and grabs himself a large, cold pitcher of the mead—the Salernan kind, tart and sweet—and an earthenware mug. He nudges Lorne until he grumbles, irritated, in his sleep, and scoots over to make room for Ronon. He pours himself a healthy measure, four fingers high, and starts to drink.

* * *

Ronon had his first drink at twelve, sitting with the rest of his year fellows at the table of honour. It was Unification Day, officially the most important holiday in Sateda after the High Holy Days; the most important unofficially, though, with the long summer days free from work and care, when women were free to dress as men, when men could masquerade as women. People fucked openly in the streets, sang lewd songs about priests and aristocrats, and fought running battles through towns and cities: fights that were half deadly, half childish play where one side pelted the other with rotting _tekka_ fruit—all the ways that chaos could be used to celebrate order.

Ronon remembers being very frightened that day, his first Unification Day; very frightened and very solemn, holding the cup of fiery _bÃ¡jan_ with both hands and pretending, like the others around him, that he knew exactly how to knock back the liquid in one mouthful, that he knew how to swallow without choking. He stood with the others—boys, not yet men—and raised his cup and toasted Sateda, some with voices that had broken, some with voices that were still reed-high, before drinking and slamming his cup back onto the table.

He remembers how determined he was to show himself a proper Satedan, how nervous he'd been to have the eyes of the whole town on him. He remembers licking the after-burn of the _bájan_ from his lips, scanning the room for his father, and returning his father's grin with a shaky smile of his own. He remembers being nervous, wondering _what happens now, what comes next?_

Ronon pours another measure, five fingers deep, and wonders how much has changed.

* * *

Teyla sits down next to him before he's made it halfway through the pitcher. Lorne's still snoring softly to his left; she makes a warm presence to his right. Her hair smells like flowers, and he can feel the curves of her pressed against his side. She's breathless, laughing.

"Will you not join us? John has persuaded Rodney to dance, and if Rodney's drink-courage doesn't fail him, he says he will try the jump through the Fire Ring at the next pass."

Ronon looks sidelong at her.

Teyla quirks an eyebrow at him, and makes a light challenge of her words. "Or is it that you think they would challenge you? Or that Rodney would succeed where you could not?"

"No," Ronon says shortly, and takes another pull of his mead.

"Ronon?" Teyla says; her voice is puzzled, and her hand rests gently on his forearm. "What's wrong?"

He starts to shake his head, then thinks better of it. He inclines his head in the direction of the burning ring instead. It's been alight for nearly an hour now, but the flames show no sign of dying; it'll keep going for a while yet. "That."

"Yes?" The tiny lines of bemusement on Teyla's forehead deepen; her tone is careful, the way Ronon's heard her speak when Sheppard's being more confusing than usual.

Ronon takes a breath. "How can you do that? Destroy your means of escape. You've got some chance to get away with it, but none without it."

Teyla inclines her head. In the growing darkness, Ronon can't tell if she's angry with him, or saddened. "It is not destruction, Ronon. It is an... offering up. It is believed that if you sacrifice what you value most, let it go, it will return to you ten-fold, and it will return to you." Her words have a certain rhythm, rising and falling, like she's reciting them from memory.

"Doesn't work like that," Ronon says. His voice sounds gruff to his own ears, thick and strange.

"No," Teyla says, "not always," and her voice is very kind. She strokes her hand down over his forearm, raising the fine hairs there with her touch, down over the bones of his wrist before covering the back of his hand with her palm. She lets it rest there for a moment, before he turns his hand beneath hers and, palm to palm, their fingers interlace.

"Not always," Teyla says, "but sometimes. And even if you do not succeed, if things are not... as you wish, sometimes it is still best to let go."

Ronon squeezes her hand a little. Overhead, the first of the fireworks burst, plumes of red and gold.

* * *

The first year he ran, Ronon tried his best to stay the same. Specialist Ronon Dex, Ferrthan Company, Ninth Regiment; he'd kept his armour repaired and polished as best he could, tied his hair back neatly; remembered his mother's prayers and kept the fast days though every day was a fast. He tried so hard to keep Sateda with him—saw her moons in the night sky of every planet he ran on, saw her people in the faces of everyone he met.

By the end of the second year, he slept with no thought for prayer times, he wore what he could find, and he carried weapons that were souvenirs and reminders of half a hundred worlds. He ate what he could when he could, and didn't look people in the eye anymore, in case they would know him for what he was—for a thief and a killer and a runner.

The first year was the worst. He'd still had hope.

* * *

"I don't know," he says. "Teyla. I don't know if I can."

His breathing is harsh and laboured, wet; he leans against her so that she bends with his weight, but she holds him up. She asks nothing of him, but strokes his hair once, twice, over and over while the party eddies and flows around them. He closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of her, fresh sweat and leather and fading perfume. When his breathing steadies, Teyla presses a kiss to his temple, then stands up, and tugs at his arm until he does, too.

"Come," she says, "dance with me."

"I don't dance," Ronon says, feeling unaccountably nervous (like he's young again, like he's still that boy) and awkward (like his first weeks on Atlantis, when every eye was on him, and he didn't know how to move) and angry (just a little, but it's there, a hot and constant flare underneath his skin).

Teyla's thumb and forefinger form a loose circle around his wrist. "You do not have to dance with us in celebration," she says, looking up and meeting his eyes. "If your heart cannot follow, leave it be. But I would like it, if you danced, just with me."

Ronon looks down at her.

"Please," she says; the tone of her voice makes it clear that her words are not a plea, but an offer.

Ronon closes his eyes, licks his lips. "Alright," he says, "okay." She leads him forward.

* * *

On rest days and solstice days, when the banks were closed and all trade ceased, Ronon's mother put away her work uniform, shook off the stiff formality of an accountant, and donned the green robes of a temple acolyte. She never professed any vows, was never even particularly devout, but she spent nearly all of her free time in the cool dark of the temple. She had special care of the young ones, and she taught them all the dances, all the steps that beat out the ebb and flow of births and marriages, funerals and festivals.

His sisters and sister-cousins had learned the dances from her before him, of course; the privilege of age and sex. Ronon sat by the wall while his mother taught, sat there for weeks with his arms wrapped around his knees, patient and patient, until his mother asked him to join in.

"Come on, Ronon-_ba_," she said, her eyes lit up and the braids of her hair swinging dark and heavy against her shoulders. "It's time you knew how to join in."

When Ronon scrambled up to join them, over-eager and grinning, he found he already knew all the steps.

* * *

Teyla doesn't wait for him when they reach the circle of dancers. She just steps in and lets go, sliding into the rhythm of an Athosian pattern-dance—arms held out, hips moving, arms sliding forward and back, side to side. She rises up on her toes as the dance goes on, and she's so light and so quick that Ronon can't quite see how she's holding herself up.

"Come on, join me," she says, the third time she passes him, cheeks flushed, "or if you will not dance the _catten_, at least show us how they danced on Sateda."

Her words are light; they don't ask grief from him, just remembrance, and Ronon finds that he can give that, that he can do this. He steps forward into the circle and moves with her; at first she falters, and at first he's uncertain, but then their rhythms sync, tempos collide, and they're dancing, feet moving in steps that are Athosian and Satedan and neither all at once. Teyla feints back and he steps forward; she glides to the left and he picks her up and keeps moving, faster and faster, a wide open circle with her in his arms, and they're laughing.


End file.
